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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28592388">Rattling Around my Thoughts like Spare Change</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cookies_and_Chaos/pseuds/Cookies_and_Chaos'>Cookies_and_Chaos</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cold Case</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Family, Gen, Loss of Parent(s), Regret</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 06:42:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>492</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28592388</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cookies_and_Chaos/pseuds/Cookies_and_Chaos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Lilly knows she's far from perfect, but sometimes it seems like she takes more than her fair share of the blame and responsibility. Written for 12 Days of Christmas Challenge 2020, Day 10, "Ten Important Thoughts".</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>12 Days of Christmas Challenge 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Rattling Around my Thoughts like Spare Change</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The problem with biting your tongue was, if you waited too long, any words you wanted to say could only be spoken out loud to a memory of the person you wanted to say them to and that, Lilly had found, wasn't quite the closure that you thought it might be.</p><p>She still went ahead and did it, of course, sitting on the couch and thinking about the last time she had seen her mother. She would say the words that she wished she had said when she had the time and it helped a little bit, but it didn't bring her the sort of peace that she thought talking it through with Ellen while she was still alive might have. What surprised Lilly the most, was that most of what she had to say wasn't tinged with bitter anger anymore. What surprised her was how much of her life she had never been able to tell Ellen about.</p><p>As she sat there, sometimes speaking out loud to a woman no longer there and sometimes just thinking what she would have liked to have said, she found herself thinking that perhaps it was time to make sure she didn't make the same mistakes with the family she had left. Too often the few words she did exchange with Christina were so buried in this slow seeping resentment that she forgot about any of the other things she wanted to say. And the thoughts about her father, they were going much the same way.</p><p>The weight of expectation wore on you, after a while, Lilly had learnt. She had been expected to be the responsible daughter, then the responsible sister, then to forgive everyone when they let her down and mistreated her over and over again. Lilly knew she wasn't perfect, God did she know that she was far from a decent person at times, so sometimes she sat in the dark, with the ghost of her mother by her side, and wondered when she had been expected to always be the better person. It seemed recently that she had just had so many conversations where understanding and leniency was extended to everyone but her.</p><p>'Your mother's ill, alcoholism...it's an illness and she can't help some of the things that have happened.'</p><p>'It must have been hard for your father, trying to deal with what was going on back then.'</p><p>'Look at what her home life was like growing up, don't you think you should be a bit more understanding of what Chris is going through?'</p><p>Like she wasn't there for all of it too. Like she hadn't been a child during all of it. When had she become the responsible party whose job it was to rise about it all and throw forgiveness around herself life petals thrown to the wind?</p><p>Perhaps it was for the best that she had waited too long to say what she really wanted to say.</p>
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